I went to London with the expectation of enjoying the usual pleasures of travel, only to find that the horror follows me wherever I go.
After a few days of feeling like I was coming down with a cold, I was unable to get out of bed. I coughed all night and day, watched BBC TV, and finally hurt my back in a stupid move to hide from the room service guy when my sister opened the door without warning me.
Crippled, feverish, coughing my head off, I was determined to catch my flight home, where I was diagnosed with pneumonia.
I’m not saying it was all bad. Not at all. It was amazing to be back in London, where I lived as a teenager with no parents to curb my waywardness. What a time! Hashish and Mandrax all night, reading all day, I formed my adult sensibility there with the help of some arty college students who took me in.
It was amazing, but so different from the London of 1969. It is ridiculously crowded, and people don’t mind smashing into you if you don’t walk fast enough. The streets are full of beautiful immigrants and native Londoners who give you conflicting directions when you ask which way to Spidalfields Market.
I managed to go to the National Gallery, the British Museum, Harrods, Camden Passage, and to meet a couple of dear blogging friends who I’ve loved from afar since forever. I flirted with a hot street performer who passed under a flaming limbo stick. I ate a bunch of scones and learned to effect an all-new, obnoxious English accent.
But what I’ll remember most is the horror of being sick, in agony, worried about bursting my eardrums on the flight home and counting each hour while mentally repeating, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.
I came back on October 8th and I’m still pretty screwed up. Now that I’m almost done with coughing, I can really appreciate the pain in my back whenever I move or don’t move.
What about you guys? Anything?
Airplanes are like flying petri dishes now. You cant escape the germs everywhere. It sucks that You had the ills while over there. Nothing is worse than sick in a foreign country.
I am glad you got to see some things on your to-do list though! And yes. The sheer volume of people in London now is shocking. We were at Covent Garden station during rush hour-it was like the seventh circle of hell. There was a man on the platform pushing people into the carriages. Just like Japan!
Its a lot on all levels now. People. Noise. Expense. Struggle.
But I love it there more than anything.
xxx
I just wrote to a friend:
“I’m not suicidal but being alive sucks, doesn’t it?
It totally sucks. Existence is a mistake. I would totally go back in time and abort myself if I could.”
Or if that’s impossible because of paradox then I’d just go back in time and convince myself to just go ahead and murder everyone at prom. Fuck this shit show.
‘Big Sis’ what a delightful event to meet you (and your lovely sister) in person at last and what an amazing coincidence that the ‘Memsahib’ and I were actually visiting London for a couple days – at last that damned ‘fickle finger of fate’ pointed in the right direction! Of course, as you have realised, London is no longer the capital of England, it is now the capital of the world – and his uncle! This is part of the reason why we rarely go there anymore – it’s too big, too crowded, too grubby and I no longer speak the language! Next time you must join us down here in deepest, darkest ‘Zummerzet’, although to be fair, the language down here, whilst English, is equally tricky to understand, oo arr, oo arr! Mind you, I suspect that ‘JK’ would understand it easily!
Love your writing! Feel better soon. XO
Thank you for the distraction from current affairs…
Golly, I had a trip to London a few years ago where on the 2nd morning after feeling perfectly fine I was completely unable to lift my head. I had to crawl to the bathroom. I have no idea if I had a fever but it seems likely. I slept for about 18 hours straight, then developed a horrible cough. I coughed my way thru the rest of the visit, lost my appetite, came home, was sick for about 6 weeks and then it went. We called it the Dreaded Lurgy, which sounded sufficiently Dickensian for the event, but in fact is from Spike Milligan.
I dared to return this past June and all was perfectly fine!
I’m jealous of David Duff
My word, how typical that everything should turn to shit. So sorry that happened, Sis.
It sounds like you made the most of the time you did have. xx